英语阅读(二)2011年10月真题试题及答案解析（00596）

Our society is consumer oriented - dangerously so. To keep the wheels of industry turning, we manufacture consumer goods in endless quantities, and, in process, are rapidly exhausting our natural resources. But this is only half the problem. What do we do with manufactured products when they are worn out? They must be disposed of. Unsightly junkyards full of rusting automobiles already surround every city in the nation. Americans throw away 80 billion bottles and cans each year, enough to build more than ten stacks to the moon.

It wasn’ t always like this.( 46. Only 100 years ago man lived in harmony with nature. There weren’ t so many people then and their wants were fewer.) Whatever waste were produced could be absorbed by nature and were soon covered over. Today this harmonious relationship is threatened by man’ s lack of foresight and planning, and by his carelessness and greed. For man is slowly poisoning his environment.

Pollution is a “dirty” word. To pollute means to contaminate - to spoil something by introducing impurities which make it unfit or unclean to use. Pollution comes rn many forms. We see it, smell it, taste it, drink it, and stumble through it. (47. We literally live in and breathe pollution, and, not surprisingly, it is beginning to threaten our health, our happiness and our very civilization .)

Once we thought of pollution as meaning simply smog - the choking, stinging, dirty air that hovers over cities. But air pollution, while it is still the most dangerous, is only one type of contamination among several which attack the most basic life function.

Through the uncontrolled use of insecticides, man has polluted the land, killing the wildlife. By dumping sewage and chemicals into rivers and lakes, we have contaminated our drinking water. (48. We are polluting the ocean, too, killing the fish and thereby depriving ourselves of an invaluable food supply.)

Part of the problem is our exploding population. More and more people produce more wastes. But this problem is intensified by our “throw-away” technology. Each year Americans dispose of 7 million autos, 20 million tons of waste paper, 25 million pounds of toothpaste tubes and 48 million cans. We throw away gum wrappers, newspapers, and paper plates. It is easier and cheaper to buy a new one and discard the old, even though 95 percent of its parts may still be functioning. Baby’ s diapers, which used to be made of reusable cloth, are now paper throwaways. (49. Soon we will wear clothing made of paper: “Wear it once and throw it away,” will be the slogan of the fashion conscious.)

Where is this all to end? Are we turning the world into a gigantic dump, or is there hope that we can solve the pollution problem? Fortunately, solutions are in sight. A few of them are positively ingenious.

Take the problem of discarded automobiles, for instance. Each year over 40,000 of them are abandoned in New York City alone. Eventually the discards end up in a junkyard. But cars are too bulky to ship as scrap to a steel mill. They must first be flattened. (50. This is done in a giant compressor which can reduce a Cadillac to the size of a television set in a matter of minutes. )Any leftover scrap metal is mixed with concrete and made into exceptionally strong bricks that areused in buildings and bridges. Man’ s ingenuity has come to his rescue.

We can reduce pollution, even if we can’ t eliminate it altogether. But everyone must do his part. Check your car to see if the pollution-control device is working. Reduce your use of electricity. Don’ t dump garbage or other waste on the land or in the water. Demand that government take firm actions against polluters. We can have a clean world, or we can do nothing. The choice is up to you.

Paragraph Nine

The US Federal Reserve raised American interest rates last night for a thirteenth time in a row and signaled that, while it remains set to push them still higher, its 18-month campaign of increases will start to wind down next year.

This year’s repeatedly rising interest rates will probably f____________ next year.

Paragraph Ten

Probably the most primitive reason for teenage rebelliousness is physical in nature. At about the beginning of adolescence, children are undergoing profound hormonal changes as their bodies go through puberty. Their bodies are telling them that they are no longer children, and yet their parents are still treating them as children.

Reasons why teenagers r_____________ their parents.

Paragraph Eight

Knowing our genetic makeup can help us gauge whether or not we may be stricken by a particular illness, such as cancer. Even before birth, we are able to do genetic screenings to determine what a child’ s genetic disorders will be. In addition to predicting genetic predispositions toward diseases, gene therapies may provide new treatments or cures for serious diseases.

Great progress in g___________ engineering.

Paragraph Six

Love and knowledge led me upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Children in famine, helpless old people and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to destroy the evil, but I can’ t and I too suffer.

S___________ is one of the essential qualities of the speaker.

Paragraph Seven

It is important to remember that all children who live through a divorce do not react in the same way. Self-blame virtually disappears after the age of 6, fear of abandonment diminishes after the age of 8, and the confusion and fear of the young child is replaced in the older child by shame, anger, and self-reflection.

There is some r_____________ between age and children’ s characteristic reaction to divorce.

Paragraph Five

There are a large number of dieting programs to be found online, each promising you significant weight loss. Experts warn people against going for any and every diet program. If your diet is too strict you might harm your health. Your motive should be to lose weight in a healthy way.

Strict dieting is an u__________ way of losing weight.

Paragraph Two

Some pessimistic experts feel that the automobile is bound to fall into disuse. They see a day in the not-too-distant future when all autos will be abandoned and allowed to rust. Other authorities, however, think the auto is here to stay. They hold that the car will remain a leading means of urban travel in the foreseeable future.

Possible p___________ of automobiles.

Paragraph Three

In the past, making structures quake-resistant meant firm yet flexible materials, such as steel and wood that bend without breaking. Later, people tried to lift a building off its foundation, and insert rubber and steel between the building and its foundation to reduce the impact of ground vibrations. The most recent designs give buildings brains as well as concrete and steel supports. These are called smart buildings.

Different ways to i__________ quake-resistance of a building.

Paragraph Four

Common interests appear to be a significant factor in selecting friends. Very close and trusted friends share faith in each other. They feel secure that they will not be ridiculed, and their faith will be respected. Betraying a trust is a very quick and painful way to terminate a friendship.

Common faith helps k_________ friendship.

By far, the most vulnerable older persons are women, who are more likely than men to lack basic literacy and numerical skills, less likely to have paid work, and less likely to be eligible for pensions - where they are available. When women are eligible for pension, because of their lower pay and interrupted work histories, they are likely to receive lower pensions. Older women who have lost their partners greatly outnumber their male counterparts. In some countries, widows are often denied access to or control over resources. Also, women’ s inheritance rights are poorly established in many societies. For these and other reasons, women, especially in developing countries, are much more likely to sink into poverty in their older years. Security schemes to alleviate poverty must take into account that most of the older poor are women, of whom many have limited experience in the labor force.

The demand for new skills and knowledge places older workers at a disadvantage, as their training and skills developed earlier in life become obsolete. But age discrimination compounds many of the difficulties older workers face in the labor market. Biased attitudes hamper the efforts of older workers to find new employment and discourage employers from providing them with training. However, there is evidence that prejudices against the abilities of older workers are unfounded, and that the average difference in work performance between age groups is significantly less than the differences between workers within each age group.

Training and education are particularly important in helping older workers to adapt to changing demand and opportunities. Lifelong learning, which is increasingly recommended by social policy experts, is an important cultural and economic asset. Implicit in the concept of lifelong learning is the rejection of a society structured on the basis of age, in which education and training are one-time undertakings experienced only early in life.

26. open to emotional or physical danger or harm (Para. 1)

27. the ability to read and write (Para. 1)

28. qualified, suitable (Para. 1)

29. make something more bearable or less severe (Para. 1)

30. out-of-date, not used any more (Para. 2)

31. makes a problem or difficult situation worse; worsens (Para. 2)

32. prevent the free movement, action, or progress of (Para. 2)

33. biased and unreasonable opinions or feelings (Para. 2)

34. suggested but not communicated directly (Para. 3)

35. tasks or projects (Para. 3)

Paragraph One

Caring for people is one area where the states of Eastern Europe are far in advance of other parts of the world. Most medical and social services are provided free, and in some countries workers do not even have to make contributions to the health and insurance funds, since these contributions are made by the employer.

In Eastern Europe, people can usually enjoy very good medical and social s_____________ .

What is the major function of “cookies”?

A company can collect the personal information of shoppers visiting its Web site__________ .

The fact that an online shopper buys a lot of ice cream __________ .

What makes pets good companions?

What’ s the meaning of “virtual” at the end of paragraph one?

Passage Five

Concern about individual privacy on the Internet has been rising. E-commerce continues to grow, but many online shoppers are concerned about how their personal information is being or might be used.According to a Harris poll, many people do not shop online because of this concern, and of those who do shop online, 41% say they are very concerned about how a company uses their personal information. Now a clear majority of Americans - 57% - favor some sort of laws regulating how personal information is collected and used.Just as people are angry at intrusions into their physical space, they now want to protect the privacy of their [virtual] space.

For most companies, the Web can be a vast source of information about customers. Each buying that a user conducts on a Web site, from a single click to an actual online purchase, can be stored and analyzed. A company can learn about visitors to its Web site through “cookies”, which are small data files that the site creates on the first visit and stores in the user’ s computer. A cookie contains a unique tracking number, which enables sites to “remember” users on all subsequent visits. When you visit a site, it places electronic bits of data in your computer that tell the site a lot about you: what your e-mail address is, which portions of a Web site you looked at, what purchases you made, and so on. Many people do not even know that these “cookies” are being placed into their computers. Privacy advocates point out that if Web profiles ever became available for sale on the open market, such information could be used against people. For example, someone might not be hired for a future job if it became known that he or she had sought certain health advice on the Web. Or let’ s say a customer has purchased a lot of ice cream and wine on the Web. An insurance company could use that information against the person, assuming he or she would be a candidate for high cholesterol or alcoholism, and refuse to provide insurance.

Questions 21-25 are based on Passage Five.

Many people refuse to do on-line shopping because they are afraid that __________.

Friedmann’ s investigation suggests that __________ .

One well-established belief among researchers is that __________ .

Researchers in Britain have now found that pet owners __________ .

Passage Four

Public health experts have long been skeptical about the beneficial effect of pets on the health of their owners. After all, dogs bite and pass on parasites, and pigeons and parrots cause lung disease. However, in 1991, researchers at the University of Cambridge in Britain discovered that a short time after acquiring a cat or a dog, some people suffer less from health problems such as headache, backache and flu. It was also announced recently that Australians who keep pets tend to have less cholesterol in their blood than non-pet owners with comparable lifestyles, making them less likely to develop heart disease.

For the time being, the findings are little more than puzzling correlations. Why should owning a pet make you less likely to suffer from backache? Why should it reduce your cholesterol level? Many researchers suspect that answers will be found in the subtle links between mental and physical well-being. If the newly discovered correlations between human health and pet ownership can be confirmed, they are likely to trigger fresh research on the psychological and physiological effects of keeping pets.

The hint that pets could help some people to live longer came from a discovery made over a decade ago. Erica Friedmann, working at the University of Maryland in the United States, investigated whether a person’ s social life and degree of social isolation might influence their ability to survive a heart attack. Friedmann interviewed 92 recovering male patients and quizzed them in detail about their lifestyle, a few questions touching upon pets. A year later fourteen of the 92 men had died. Friedmann went back to her data to look for differences between those who had and those who had not survived.She found that socially isolated people were more likely to fall victim, and that those who had pets were more likely to recover.

Or the explanation is that pets can provide owners with a special kind of emotional support which is lacking or at least uncommon in relationships between people. An animal’ s muteness is a benefit, not a burden. The problem with language is that although we use it to communicate the deepest thoughts and emotions, we also use it to deceive, misinform, criticize and insult others. The fact that pets listen and seem to understand, but do not question or evaluate, may be one of their most endearing assets as companions. It resembles the relationships some psychotherapists try to build.

Questions 16-20 are based on Passage Four.

For a long time doctors have been doubtful if __________ .

According to the last paragraph, what does de Neve want to clarify about their research findings?

What does MAOA refer to?

What have earlier studies proved?

What can we learn from Paragraph 4?

Passage Three

When trying to understand why some people have trouble living within their means, we tend to blame factors such as high interest rates and irresponsible spending. Now researchers have found another possible factor to add to the list: a gene linked to credit-card debt.

Earlier work has shown that genetics plays a role in how we handle money. But a recent study was the first to show that a particular gene affects financial behavior outside the lab.Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and the London School of Economics looked at genetic data and questionnaires already collected from more than 2,000 young adults aged 18 to 26 as part of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. In particular, they looked at whether these young adults said they had any credit-card debt and what version of the MAOA gene they had.

Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) (甲型单胺氧化酶) is an enzyme that breaks down the signaling chemicals called neuro-transmitters in the brain. Previous studies have linked the low-efficiency versions of the MAOA gene - the variants that cause less MAOA to be produced by brain cells - to impulsiveness.

In the new study, people with one “low” MAOA gene and one “high” MAOA gene reported having credit-card debt 7.8 percent more often than did people with two “high” versions, the researchers found, even when they controlled for factors such as education and socioeconomic status. For people with two “low” versions of the gene, that number jumped to 15.9 percent.

The researchers were surprised by the magnitude of the difference. “The effect is almost as big as financial literacy,” meaning people’ s ability to digest complicated financial information, says Jan-Emmanuel de Neve, an author of the study.

But, de Neve cautions, an individual’ s version of the MAOA gene does not predict whether he or she is carrying debt. The gene affects credit-card debt the way other genes have been found to play a role in breast cancer: a particular version of the gene increases risk, but many other genetic and environmental factors are important, too.

Questions 11-15 are based on Passage Three.

The recent study has found that __________.

The babies would “smile and bubble” at the lights because __________.

According to Pap, the pleasure babies get in achieving something is a reflection of __________.

Pap noticed in his studies that a baby __________.

In Pap’ s experiment babies make learned movements of the head in order to __________.

Passage Two

For some time past it has been widely accepted that babies - and other creatures - learn to do things because certain acts lead to “rewards”; and there is no reason to doubt that this is true. But it used also to be widely believed that effective reward, at least in the early stages, had to be directly related to such basic physiological “drives” as thirst or hunger. In other words, a baby would learn if he got food or drink or some sort of physical comfort, not otherwise.

It is now clear that this is not so. Babies will learn to behave in ways that produce results in the world with no reward except the successful outcome.

Pap began his studies by using milk in the normal way to “reward” the babies and so teach them to carry out some simple movements, such as turning the head to one side or the other. Then he noticed that a baby who had enough to drink would refuse the milk but would still go on making the learned response with clear signs of pleasure. So he began to study the children’s responses in situations where no milk was provided.He quickly found that children as young as four months would learn to turn their heads to right or left if the movement “switched on” a display of lights - and indeed that they were capable of learning quite complex turns to bring about this result, for instance, two left or two right, or even to make as many as three turns to one side.

Pap’ s light display was placed directly in front of the babies and he made the interesting observation that sometimes they would not turn back to watch the lights closely although they would “smile and bubble” when the display came on. Pap concluded that it was not primarily the sight of the lights which pleased them, it was the success they were achieving in solving the problem, in mastering the skill, and that there exists a fundamental human urge to make sense of the world and bring it under intentional control.

Questions 6-10 are based on Passage Two.

When would Tommy steal food from the author?

What kind of food did Tommy like?

Tommy __________ when he was dying.

Passage One

Toward twelve o’ clock, when we were crossing a high land, we heard the cry of a young animal, which we all recognized to be a baby ape. We crawled through the bush as silently as possible, still hearing the baby-like cry. Then a frightened little ape came into our sight. I could not tell my surprise when I saw that the baby ape’ s face was pure white - very white indeed - palliD. The little one was about a foot in height. One of the men threw cloth over its head and we secured it with a rope.

I called him Tommy, to which name he soon began to answer. He had a great affection for me, and used constantly to follow me about. When I sat down, he was not content till he had climbed upon me and hid his head in my breast. He was extremely fond of being petted and fondled and would sit for hours while any one stroked his head or back.

He soon began to be a great thief. When the people left their huts he would steal in and make off with their plantains or fish. He watched very carefully till all had left the house, and it was difficult to catch him in the act.

From me he stole constantly. He soon found out that my hut was better furnished with ripe bananas and other fruit than any other; and also he discovered that the best time to steal from me was when I was asleep in the morning. At that time he used to crawl in on his tiptoes, move slyly toward my bed, look at my closed eyes, and, if he saw no movement, with an air of great relief go up and pluck several plantains. If I stirred in the least he was off like a flash, and would presently reenter for another inspection. If my eyes were open when he came in on such a predatory trip, he at once came up to me with an honest face, and climbed on and caressed me. But I could easily detect an occasional wishful glance toward the bunch of plantains.

He kept the run of mealtimes, and was present at as many meals as possible; that is, he would go from my breakfast to half a dozen others, and beg something at each. He was very fond of boiled meat - particularly boiled fish - and was constantly picking bones. He wanted always to taste my coffee, and would beg of me, in the most serious manner, for some.

Tommy had a great deal of intelligence; and if I had had leisure I think I might have trained him to some kind of good behavior, though I despaired of his thieving disposition. He lived so long, and was growing so accustomed to civilized life, that I began to have great hopes of being able to carry him to America. But, one morning he refused his food, seemed downcast, and was very anxious to be petted and held in the arms. I got all kinds of forest berries for him, but he refused all. He did not seem to suffer, but ate nothing; and the next day, without a struggle, die. I was very sorry, for he had grown to be quite a pet companion for me.

Questions1-5 are based on Passage One.

How did the author find the little ape?

Which of the following is true of Tommy?